


Coping

by damnhufflepuff



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Best Friends, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:15:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25737136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnhufflepuff/pseuds/damnhufflepuff
Summary: It’s a good ten minutes before she sits up, looking up at her best friend with wide, glimmering eyes, tears streaking down her face, her hair sticking to her cheeks.“What’s wrong with me, Harry?”He doesn’t have an answer.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Kudos: 42





	Coping

**Author's Note:**

> I used to be hardcore into the harry potter/harmony fandom. I still love em with all my heart, just not as active as I used to be...but what am I active in anymore ahahha  
> an older piece, posted to tumblr on feb 08, 2014

He asks her if she wants to stay the night

She says yes.

He’s drunk and she’s so far pissed, she’s not even sure she could remember her own name if she were asked.

She never was much of a drinker. She doesn’t know what about tonight is different.

Everyone else already went home. It’s just them. She practically falls into his arms as she tries to stumble back through the door way, giggling all the while, looking up at him with wide, glazed over eyes that can hardly focus. He laughs with her, but deep down he’s worried. Doesn’t matter how drunk he is - he always worries about her. He worries about her all alone in her own apartment, spending weeks on ending cut off from the world, drowning and losing herself in her books and hardly leaving the house. He knows she’s depressed.

She won’t admit it.

She’d been that way ever since after the war. The Battle of Hogwarts. She just sort of lost herself and never quite found her way back again. Ron couldn’t put up with it. He left eventually. They’re still civil to each other and friendly when they gang gets together. But the spark? It’s gone.

Sometimes he worries that’s what pushed her over the edge. But he knows it isn’t. It really wasn’t anything in particular. A mixture of everything.

If anyone were gonna lose their minds, he thought it would be himself. But her…she cared too much for everyone. Too apathetic. So in a way, it made sense.

“Why don’t you lay down?” He tries to guide her to the couch and ends up dragging her part way there as she’s still giggling and can barely stand on her own two feet.

“Hermione, please.” He starts to beg, grunting softly as he tries to balance her dead weight against his shoulder. She laughs more.

Finally be plops her on the sofa where she slumps over onto her side, burying her face into the cushion. And just like that she’s gone again. The laughter stops. Her body goes still before it begins to shake again, like hiccups, only she’s not laughing anymore.

“Oh, ‘Mione.” He mutters, sitting down at her side, rubbing her back as she cries into his couch cushion. It’s a good ten minutes before she sits up, looking up at her best friend with wide, glimmering eyes, tears streaking down her face, her hair sticking to her cheeks.

“What’s wrong with me, Harry?”

He doesn’t have an answer.

\- - - - - - - - - - -

She wakes up the next morning in his bed, curled into his warm side. He’s still asleep, on arm thrown over his eyes, the other behind her head. She lifts her head a bit, groaning and squeezing her eyes shut tight.

She’s hung over as hell.

She doesn’t question how she got where she is. Why they’re in the same bed. What happened the night before.

She goes back to sleep.

\- - - - - - - - - - -

When she wakes up again he’s gone. She finds him in his kitchen. They’re both still in their clothes from the night before. He hands her a mug of hot tea.

She doesn’t say anything about the night before.

Neither does he.

\- - - - - - - - - - -

It’s a week later when he finds her flat on her back on her living room floor, a bottle of fire whiskey a few feet away, her arms over her eyes. She groans when he opens the door so he knows she’s still alive - for the most part.

She starts to cry again. He sits on the floor beside her, brushing his hand through her busy hair. She doesn’t take her arms away from her face until she finally sits up, staring blankly at the wall on the other side of the room. It’s several long minutes before she speaks, her voice hoarse from crying.

“What’s wrong with me, Harry?”

He still doesn’t have an answer.

\- - - - - - - - - - -

She shows up on his front door step a couple nights later. She’s swaying a bit, her eyes are rimmed red, and there’s a bit of blood trickling from her nose.

“I ran into the–” She waves her hand in the air, as if he’s supposed to understand that. He does.

She was drinking. Again.

“Harry, I think I have a problem.” She tells him as she’s sitting on his couch and he hands her a pack of ice. He shrugs a shoulder, not wanting to agree, but not knowing what exactly to say.

She shakes her head a bit, holding the ice pack between her knees, looking down at her hands as she begins to grip it tightly. “It just feels so much better..not to feel.”

She chokes a bit on her last word and Harry sits beside her, wrapping an arm over her shoulder. She doesn’t cry this time, just falls limply against his side. He kisses the side of her head.

She looks up at him.

They’re lips are mere inches apart. Her eyes flutter shut - his do too.

The kiss is short and sweet and she backs away from him as soon as it’s over, her eyes widening a bit, a lump forming in her throat. His expression mirrors hers, but he doesn’t move.

\- - - - - - - - - - -

She wakes up in his bed for the second time.

Her clothes are gone.

Harry’s sitting on the other side of the bed in just his boxers, clasping and unclasping his hands together. She pulls the blanket to her chest and sits up, staring at his back.

“Harry…?”

He doesn’t respond, but she knows he’s listening.

“I wanna get help.”

She doesn’t see it, but the corner of his mouth turns up into the faintest of smiles.

“Harry.” She says again, quieter this time.

“Thank you.”


End file.
